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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28388406">polychromatic beams of light</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivermectin/pseuds/ivermectin'>ivermectin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Osmosis (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>&amp; we hold parents responsible for not being around, But also, Canon Compliant, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Neglect (?), Intrusive Thoughts, POV Neils Larsen, Post-Canon, no sex negativity or mental health related ableism in my house, small explanation in the endnotes, that's all you need to know!!, this fic is mostly fluff, with a decent dose of Neils' issues, young people in love!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 14:40:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>767</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28388406</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivermectin/pseuds/ivermectin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He didn’t know fun like this existed out of the movies.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Niels Larsen/Claire Salomon</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>polychromatic beams of light</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>1</p><p>She takes his hand in hers, corrects his grip. Teaches him – light lines first. She doesn’t judge the mess that is his attempt at drawing the sculpture.</p><p> </p><p>2</p><p>They throw paint at each other. It’s an escalation, starting with water. Niels ruins her clothes and she doesn’t even care. He didn’t know fun like this existed out of the movies.</p><p>And then he looks at her, and he thinks he wants her to touch him with paint-covered fingers, he wants to get her naked and mess her up, drag paint all over the lines of her body, and it’s such an intense feeling, and she is his <em>friend, </em>soulmate bullshit be damned, so he runs away, leaving her there with paint on her clothes and her face and a question in her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>3</p><p>He doesn’t know what to tell her when she comes to get him from the institute.</p><p>Niels is all intrusive thoughts and paranoia, all anger and frustration. He’s sick of people thinking he’s a criminal just because he’s horny. He’s scared of himself sometimes, of what it means, capitalistic porno machine in his brain, a distraction from all his family problems. Manufactured orgasms, his right hand – he’s afraid for Claire.</p><p>“This isn’t like you,” she tells him.</p><p>He’s suddenly ashamed of how difficult it is for him to form genuine human connections with other people. Even with the nanobots in his head, he still fucked up.</p><p>“You shouldn’t have come,” he says.</p><p>He’s breaking her heart and his too, but he doesn’t have a choice. When he’s safe to be around – when he trusts himself to be around her – maybe then, and only then, he’ll explore it.</p><p> </p><p>4</p><p>They’re in a space that isn’t real or imaginary, and she hugs him. Her body and his curl into each other, and he isn’t alone. He’s just seventeen, and she’s just six months older than him, but their love feels solid, feels like something that’ll grow with them over the aeons.</p><p>He abandons his glowing ball, Edna, runs through the institute screaming at the top of his lungs. He is so full of love, his love for Claire, Claire’s love for him, that he even kisses the receptionist on the way out.</p><p>“You’re beautiful!” he yells to the man as he leaves. “I love you! Have a nice day!”</p><p>There’s people after him, and there’s Claire on her bike, calling his name. The best sound he’s ever heard. He climbs on, and she speeds away from them, and he’s cheering, and she’s cheering, and he kisses her and she kisses back and the rest of the road is empty, and it’s like the whole world belongs to the two of them.</p><p> </p><p>5</p><p>“The first time you saw porn you were eight,” Claire says to him, softly.</p><p>They’re lying on the floor in her apartment, and Claire is painting on Niels’ back, seriously trying to recreate an image of the milky way galaxy, while Niels tries to keep still. They’d been talking about their childhoods, and somehow they’d gotten <em>here</em>.</p><p>“Yeah, so?”</p><p>“That’s not normal, Niels,” she tells him, and he flinches without meaning to, because if Claire thinks there’s something wrong with him, he isn’t sure how he’ll survive it.</p><p>But then, she’s saying, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”</p><p>“You don’t blame me?” he asks, sitting up suddenly.</p><p>His back hits Claire’s chin, not with much force, thankfully, but now her chin is covered in dark blue paint.</p><p>“No, of course not,” Claire says, her tone of voice indicating that she thinks he is being very silly. “You were a child. It’s not your fault.”</p><p>Disbelieving, Niels reaches out with a hand, wiping the paint off her chin. “I don’t think anyone’s ever told me that before.”</p><p>He leans forward, kisses her. She’s looking at him like she wants to say, <em>there’s nothing wrong with you, </em>and he wants to say, <em>around you, I feel like there never is.</em></p><p>Niels has her lipstick on his mouth when he pulls away, a soft pastel pink, and he doesn’t really care. He already feels like he is entirely hers, anyway.</p><p>“I’d love you without the implant,” he tells her. “I’d love you in every other life.”</p><p>“I know,” Claire says. “Me too.”</p><p>And then, she uses her paintbrush to paint an indigo moustache onto his face.</p><p>“Hey!” Niels protests, but he’s smiling, even as the paint drips into his mouth. He goes to the bathroom sink to wash it off, clean his mouth out, and he can hear her laughing over the stream of water.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So, the way the show did it,  Niels' "sex addiction" thing.....didn't feel right to me. It didn't make sense?<br/>a) what was he doing watching porn at the age of 8? where was his mother then??<br/>b) honestly, everything he was going through with seeing naked women seemed more like intrusive thoughts to me than anything else. so that's the approach I've taken here!</p><p>Niels was using watching porn as a way to cope with his emotional / mental health / family related problems,  which - to me - is what the problem was. And that's the perspective my fic takes, too.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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